How does a tiny scrap of paper with a simple shape scribbled on it sell for over $200,000?

When it belongs to the Italian Renaissance Master, Michelangelo, the sky is the limit.

Michelangelo’s sketch of a marble block reads “simile.”
Photos courtesy of Christie’s.

A sketch by Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists of the Italian Renaissance, perhaps of all time, recently sold for $201,600. It was offered by Christie’s New York in its A Park Avenue Collection auction on April 17 with a presale estimate of $6,000 – $8,000. In this case, the lot selling at over 30 times its estimate is remarkable, not because it sold for so much, but because its estimate was so low. On rare occasions when Michelangelo’s drawings come to auction, they sell for extremely high prices; the auction record for Michelangelo’s works is over $21 million for a sketch, believed to be his first nude, sold at Christie’s in Paris in 2022.

One look at the sketch that sold on April 17 shows why its estimate was relatively low: it’s not a study for one of Michelangelo’s great works, displaying his skill at depicting human forms. Instead, it is a diagram of a rectangular block of marble etched ‘simile’ mounted on a bifolium inscribed by Cosimo Buonarroti and by John Bowring, which states, “The enclosed writing and outline of Michael Angelo was given on this day by his descendant Cosimo Buonarroti to John Bowring.”  Michelangelo is known to have made sheets full of drawings like these. They are sketches of marble blocks he needed for his sculptures and architectural designs, providing instructions for quarrying and transportation. Because this one is marked “Simile” (“similar”), experts believe it was drawn on a sheet with a similar block with its dimensions labeled.

Michelangelo’s block sketch is attached to a handwritten note
from Cosimo Buonarroti to John Bowring. Photos courtesy of Christie’s.

Cosimo was known to gift small fragments of paper with Michelangelo’s sketches. These were often authenticated by inscriptions of friendship or esteem. Like this sketch, many featured block designs. Ultimately, they were either auctioned off or found their way into various foreign collections.

Any drawing by Michelangelo is rare; he famously destroyed most of his sketches before his death. According to his contemporary and biographer Giorgio Vasari, an artist, he didn’t want anyone to see the processes behind his work, only his perfected finished products. He may also have been afraid others would try to steal his designs. Today, however, his drawings are valued for their rarity and for the historical information they provide. The sale of the simple sketch of a marble block on a two-inch square sheet for over $200,000 proves that even the most mundane inscription belonging to Michelangelo is a work of art.

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Out of the Kitchen, Into the Louvre

In 2019, a nonagenarian woman in Compiègne, France, took the art world by storm when a routine house clearing revealed that what she thought was a Greek religious icon hanging in her kitchen was actually a medieval masterpiece.

Cimabue, The Mocking of Christ. Photo courtesy ACTEON Senlis.

The 10-by-8-inch painting on a wood panel proved to be the work of Cimabue (1240-1302), a Florentine artist whose work paved the way for the painters of the Italian Renaissance. The painting, called Christ Mocked, was part of a series called The Flagellation of Christ, which was probably made for an altarpiece. Only two other panels from the series have been identified. Analysis showed that this one was painted in the same technique on wood from the same plank of poplar, even with matching wormholes.

The painting went to auction in October 2019 at the Acteon auction house in Senlis, France. This was the first time a Cimabue painting was auctioned. Bidders couldn’t resist its rarity, historical significance, and the extraordinary story of its provenance, and quickly surpassed its presale estimate of $6 million, selling for $26.8 million to Chilean collectors Álvaro Saih Bendeck and Ana Guzmán Ahnfelt, who outbid a contemporary gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But the story doesn’t end there. The French Ministry of Culture, considering the work a national treasure that should remain in the country, would not allow the painting to be exported. The Louvre Museum in Paris was given 30 months to raise money to buy the painting.

Now that 30 months have passed, the Louvre has raised the money and reached an agreement with the buyers. The museum has acquired the painting and intends to display it beside the Maestà, another Cimabue painting. The exhibition is planned to open in 2025.

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